I finished the book by Salman Rushdie after a long delay. The delay was caused by two reasons: First was just the pleasure of reading the book slowly. Rushdie is really good at playing with words and depicting ironies subtly. Therefore, I didn’t rush to the next page. The second reason was just the fact that I was too tired and jetlag as I was deplaning myself after a flight from New York Kennedy Airport to Istanbul Ataturk Airport.
The book is manly oriented around two themes: Women and Power. Although I would encourage everybody to read the novel, I would definitely encourage my male friends more. Rushdie does a great job of questioning and narrating our carnal desires for more power and beautiful women.
Here is a few passages from the novel:
” “Your time has come” the emperor assented. “So tell us the truth fully before you go, what sort of paradise do you expect to discover when you have passed through the veil?” The Rana raised his mutilated face and looked emperor in the eye. “In paradise, the words worship and argument mean the same thing,” he declared. “The Almighty is not a tyrant. In the House of God all voices are free to speak as they choose, and that is the form of their devotion.” He was an irritating, holier-than-thou type of youth, that was beyond question, but in spite of his annoyance, Akbar was moved. “We promise you,” the emperor said, “that we will build that house of adoration here on earth.” Then with a cry – Allahu Akbar, God is great, or, just possibly, Akbar is God- he chopped off the pompous little twerp’s cheeky, didactic, and therefore suddenly unnecessary, head.” (page 35)
” “You don’t need those flowers anymore” she [Kara Köz] told him [Argalia the Turk], caressing them. “Now you have me instead to be your good luck charm.”
He thought, Yes, I have you, but only until I don’t. Only until you choose to leave me as you left your sister, to change horses again as you changed from Shah Ismail to me. A horse is a horse, after all.” (page 223)
“Again, at once, he was mired in contradictions. He did not wish to be divine but he believed in the justice of his power, his absolute power, and, given that belief, this strange idea of the goodness of disobedience, that somehow slipped into his head was nothing less than seditious… That discord, difference, disobedience, disagreement, irreverence, iconoclasm, impudence, even insolence might be wellsprings of the good. These thoughts were not fit for a king.” (page 310)